Friday, April 19th 2024 |
By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER
The Torah (see Deuteronomy 14) states that land animals must both chew their cud and have split hooves to qualify as kosher. Fish must have both fins and scales. Scripture provides no such anatomical markers for fowl. Rather, the Torah lists examples of bird species which are permissible or forbidden for Israelite consumption. The turkey appears nowhere on the list! This provoked some heated rabbinic...
By RABBI DAVID WOLPE
The first words I say in the morning, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, are Mode Ani, “I thank You.” I walk out of my house and am greeted by the dawn. I step from a house I didn’t build in clothes I did not sew into a day I did not create with a life I was given. Thank you.
With each challenge and difficulty that arises...
By ALAN SMASON, Exclusive to the CCJN
While most of us will celebrate this Thanksgiving Day with our respective family and friends enjoying festive repasts, watching football games, and sharing good times, there will also be much to consider about this uniquely American holiday. There are many myths that are associated with this holiday that have been steeped in our earliest schooling.
The story tells of the upright, proud Pilgrims...
By RABBI MOSHE HAUER
(JTA) — How do you celebrate Thanksgiving during a pandemic?
The medical, financial, social and emotional challenges, coupled with the stresses we are experiencing within civil society, have made this a hard time to focus on our blessings. How can we express gratitude at a time of such difficulty?
Somehow we must. Our country is not in perfect shape, and our lives are at times unrecognizable. But...
By RABBI JEREMY MARKIZ
(JTA) — While my wife and I were sitting outside during Succot, the Jewish harvest festival in the fall, we spent some time reflecting on the fact that we celebrated the major Jewish holidays during the pandemic.
On the one hand, we missed our friends and family at Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We missed making memories around tables filled with food and wine....
By RABBI DAVID WOLPE
The first words we say in the morning are “Modeh ani”– I am grateful. When the Amida is repeated the prayer leader recites everything on behalf of the congregations save the modim passage — the prayer of thanks. Our lives are filled with blessings to recite — over food, over experiences, over nature, over one another — and each is an expression of thanks to God.
...By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF
I had a long talk with our Rabbi the other day about Thanksgiving. Since I’m always looking to celebrate and write about Jewish holidays, I proposed that we Jews grab Thanksgiving and put it on our list. I must have won the argument because here I am writing a Thanksgiving story. (I won the Christmas debate last year when I repeatedly insisted...
By EDMON J. RODMAN
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — As we prepare for our Thanksgiving feasts, a 90-year-old Jewish man named Arnold Abbott is stirring the pot in Fort Lauderdale, FL., about hunger and homelessness in America.
Or is it that Abbott, who in defiance of a controversial new city ordinance has been cited several times for feeding the homeless outdoors, is just asking us...
By CINDY SHER
CHICAGO (JTA) — Last year, for a month before Thanksgiving I jotted down one thing for which I was grateful every night before I went to bed.
Here are some of the 30 blessings I recorded:
• A warm bed. • Airplanes that fly me to visit my family for Thanksgiving. • A baby bundled in a puffy coat and a hat with teddy...
